Fight Or Flight
by APerfectGrace
Summary: Dean Winchester is avoiding his Viking responsibilities as the Chief's son when a blue light streaks across the sky, illuminating Dean's world and changing it forever. Destiel. One shot. HTTYD crossover.


Dean is the eldest son of John, Chief of the Viking island of Berk. He's not a traditional Viking: he's a little clumsy, eats way too much pie, opts for a bow and arrow in favour of the traditional hefty axe and is more content with going exploring than he is training to follow his father's footsteps.

Because he is the eldest, which means one day he will become Chief.

The thought fills him with dread. He is no leader.

That's Sammy, Dean's youngest brother. Sam has it all: intelligence, responsibility, tranquillity. He can listen to problems and make decisions in the village's best interest. Sammy would make a great leader, and Dean would gladly give it to him, but tradition dictates that the eldest son must become Chief.

But Dean doesn't want to become Chief. Dean wants to climb trees and swim in coves and run and jump and leap and fly. He wants to be _free_.

His father doesn't understand. The villagers laugh it off as a phase.

It's okay. He doesn't care.

He knows what he wants.

Today is an important day. The entire island has gathered for a meeting on how to prepare themselves for the upcoming winter.

It bores Dean to tears thinking about it, and the thought of spending hours debating about new thatched roofs and whether oak can withstand the yearly freeze better than mahogany is so mind-numbingly dull that he's already hooking his leg over the sill of his bedroom to escape.

He jumps out the window, landing with ease, sprinting past Missouri's kitchen where, predictably, she has one of her famous pecan pies cooling on the window, and he swipes it without a care (she knows, and if she cared she'd stop leaving her pies on the kitchen window, he theorises) and heads off into the dense woods that surround the north of the village's borders.

A couple of hours later, at around the same time that Sam is wondering where his brother is, Dean is straddling one of the branches of the sycamore trees where the woods meet the Black Cliffs, legs swinging and cheeks bulging with the best damn pie in this world. He's watching a bird making a nest in a knot a couple of feet above his head when out of nowhere he hears an almighty bang, making him nearly topple off of the branch with a shout.

Suddenly, what looks like a streak of blue lightning whizzes across his line of sight, illuminating the area with its luminescent glow. It rips through the air with a high-pitched whistle and landing to the east with a loud, rumbling noise.

Dean is scrambling down the tree before he can even think about it; scared and excited and curious, moving so fast he nearly KO's himself with a branch.

He's never seen anything like that before; he has to know what that thing is. He has to.

When he eventually reaches the landsite (he's been exploring these forests for years, he knows them like the back of his hand), he takes in his surroundings slowly.

Trees have been splintered to pieces and the ground's been blown apart, grass singed and flowers burnt to a cinder. Flora is scattered everywhere – it looks like the hand of God punched through the earth. Dust is sitting thick in the air, and the dry itch of it it makes Dean cough violently.

Suddenly, there's a noise in the centre of the site, and every hair on Dean's body is on end, his body tense, his mind wildly alert.

A half-burning laurel bush begins to rustle.

"Hello?" Dean calls out, regretting it a split second later.

He's not sure exactly _why_ he would do something so stupid because he left his bow and arrow at home and he has nothing to defend himself with right now and if whatever is behind there decides that he's lunch then he is, to put it eloquently, fucked.

A weird, low sound emanates from the leaves, and then something steps out from behind it and Dean stops breathing.

A male his age is staring at him, blue, glowing eyes boring into Dean's own.

His eyes are glowing.

Dean's first reaction is to scream and run, because no human he has ever known has ever had freakishly luminescent eyes.

But the image of the blue streak across the sky fills Dean's mind, and the boy cocks his head to the side. The glowing simmers away to reveal striking cobalt blue eyes, framed by thick lashes, and now Dean can't seem to move, those eyes rooting him to the spot.

The boy stares at him, silent, so Dean stares back, unable to do anything but take in the sight before him.

The male's bottom half is covered in furs and calf-skin trousers and leathered shoes, like Dean, but while Dean's furs and leathers are a dark, chocolate array of colours, this boy's vary from beige to cream coloured furs, all soft and well-oiled and well-kept.

Shockingly, his torso is completely bare, an act unheard of in these islands, especially at this time of the year. Yet he doesn't shiver, doesn't even acknowledge the crisp air and biting cold. It makes Dean tremble just looking at him.

His skin is smooth and tanned, his body is fit and well-proportioned; he is quite clearly not from around here. He has a multitude of tattoos: Celtic designs banded around his biceps, a strange language that Dean cannot decipher scrawled across his ribcage, strange tribal tattoos snaking down his forearms and other intricate designs on across his chest and hipbones. They're all wonderful and extremely detailed and Dean has a bizarre, unexplainable urge to trace them all with his finger.

But then something draws him out of his reverie, and Dean promptly falls over with a strangled yell as_ massive, black wings _suddenly unfold from behind the strange boy and slowly spread across the entire clearing. Dean watches, mouth open with wonder as they flap once, bones stretching and light refracting on smooth, ebony, scaled skin.

The. Wings. Are. _Colossal._

One hangs a little low though, bent slightly inwards, and Dean can see an angry jagged cut running right through it, across the bone. When it moves he can see pain flit across the boy's face.

And from some far off point Dean is dimly aware that _human beings don't possess wings_, that actually there is something familiar about this, and if he could just think properly he should know why but he can't put his finger on it, and he's so awestruck he can't even bring himself to care.

As he slowly lifts himself back to his feet, Dean can now numbly take in the long, ebony tail coiling from behind his torso, thumping softly, and there are ridges spiking through the middle of it, ones that look sharp enough to cut through skin like a hot knife through butter. That tail is easily Dean's entire body length, which is impressive because Dean is a remarkably tall person. He dwarfs ninety nine percent of the islands, bar his brother and father.

He's scrambling to his feet, marching towards the boy to get a better look because he just _needs_ to, but the wings start to vibrate dangerously at the sudden change, and Dean knows that anything could happen so he slows his pace, calms his nerve, inching slowly towards him, and the wings settle once more, fluttering excitedly.

Where the wings and tail join the boy's body there are scales, as smooth as a pebble on a beach, shining with a bluish tint. The boy is eyeing Dean with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, and his eyes pulse with a blue glow that's gone in a flash while his tail slithers behind him and then it suddenly _hits_ Dean.

"Oh, fuck," he says, recognition dawning on his face as all the Viking lores instantly flash before his eyes, stories handed down through generations of people who are not people, strange mythical creatures with wings and powers who disappeared long, long ago. "You're a _dragon_."

To Dean's utter amazement, the boy starts to chuckle. "Well. I can't say I've ever had that response before. But yes. I am."

"You… you can talk?" he blurts out.

"Yes, I can, oddly enough," he retorts drily, his wings sweeping behind him, rising high and lofty and lifting up all the dust once more.

Dean apologies around a cough, eyes on his wings. "That was a stupid question."

"Indeed," he replies, but his eyes are shining and his mouth is quirking.

"What's your name?" Dean asks, wanting to know everything.

The boy looks at him for a long, long moment, then finally answers: "Castiel."

"Castiel," Dean repeats with a murmur, totally missing the low noise rolling through Castiel's throat at the sound of his name. "That's not a name I've heard before. You're not from around here, are you?"

"No," Castiel answers indifferently.

Dean goes to say something else, then _shrieks_ when he feels something warm and solid coil around his left ankle, stumbling back.

Castiel's tail had slithered from behind him, wrapping around Dean's leg, but at Dean's reaction Castiel pulls it sharply back behind him, eyes suddenly hard and body guarded, wings poised.

"I'm sorry," Dean says around a stutter and the loud thumping of his heart. "I wasn't expecting that."

"I should apologise," Castiel offers after a moment, visibly relaxing and wings flattening. "Where I come from, it's a way of greeting strangers. I should have known that you didn't know this."

"It's… it's cool, honestly," Dean replies, not wanting Castiel to be on edge around him because he is pretty sure that this is the coolest thing to ever happen to him. "I was just a little freaked."

"Freaked," Castiel repeats, testing the word on his tongue.

"Yeah, you know – hey!"

At that sudden exclamation, Castiel's wings flap so hard in reflex that the momentum and forced air send a shouting Dean flying into a nearby pile of earth.

Mouth full of dirt and body all askew, he tries to right himself but can't, until he feels strong hands grip his arms and hoist him upright, which is no mean feat because Dean is 6'2 and not a small guy.

"Are you okay?" Castiel asks, voice laced with concern. "I apologise, sometimes my–"

"It's fine, seriously, man," Dean says, too preoccupied with his last thought before he was knocked sideways, "I just remembered, I saw you crash! Are _you _okay? What happened?" His eyes fall to the wound across Castiel's wing. "You did some pretty decent damage."

"Ah," Castiel says, after a moment, glancing over his shoulder with a grimace. "I injured my wing, and it affected my decent. I tried to change my course but ended up…" He gesticulates around him. "Here."

"We need to check your wing out, dude," Dean says, abruptly aware of the fact that the pair of them are standing really close, enough so that he can tell Castiel is barely an inch shorter than he is, and that his hair is all mussed up and untidy and that –

"What's your name?" Castiel interrupts him, eyeing him as if he's trying to read his soul.

"Oh," he replies stupidly. "Dean. My name is Dean."

Castiel echoes his name, his gruff voice rolling the syllables around and spiking heat in Dean's stomach. He suddenly murmurs something in a beautiful, strange language, and Dean is pretty sure that he's never heard something so arousing and wonderful in his entire existence.

"What did you just say?" he asks him, dazed.

"I said that you are a strange person, Dean. People run from my kind. Yet here you are, not running."

"I'm not most people," Dean replies with verve, eyes ghosting along the wings above his head.

Castiel's eyes shine bright. "Yes, I'm beginning to see that."


End file.
